Lessons in Human Frailty

Disasters are disasters even when
the cameras are not running

by Patrick J. Shanahan
01/01/05

Every generation must be possessed with an inflated sense of its own importance. This is human nature. But the current generations running things have a truly distorted and unjustifiable sense of exceptionalism. The combination of a remarkably cocooned existence and technology that makes it easier to see, visit, hear, and experience the entire world, has virtually crippled us from the perspective of truly understanding the human existence. Our lives have taught us that life is generally prosperous and fun. Modern technology has now made it possible for vast numbers of us to, for example, lounge on beaches in Thailand in anticipation of marvelous frivolity. I fear that we have come to believe that pretty much everywhere is just like our tonier progressive suburbs, and that this drives much of what passes for trendy political philosophy.

And yet, we are perniciously short-sighted when it comes to actually understanding the human condition. For our generation, if it ain't on video tape (or cam) it simply doesn't exist.

Fact: A magnitude 8.0 earthquake struck Tianjin , China, on July 27, 1976. Unofficial estimates of the death toll were as high as 655,000.

The horrific tsunami that engulfed more than 100,000 souls on the rim of the Indian Ocean is truly that - horrific. But something tells me that the presence of vacationing Westerners and video cameras are the only difference between a media gone berserk and a giant yawn.

Perhaps that is a bit harsh. In one sense this is comforting. Seeing poor people getting swept out to sea and a certain death invokes a sense of empathy that mere statistics cannot approach. We have become so cushy that being forced to face the cruel realities of life can only ground us.

Fact: Bangladesh lost 300,000 people in November 1970 from cyclone induced flooding.

I think it is "healthy" that we get an occasional up-close look at how brutal and unstoppable the forces of nature are. For all of our posturing about global-warming-this and raping-the-earth that, we are mere fleas in the face of the awesome forces of nature. Despite our vaunted powers to control/affect the earth, the only strategy in the face of this tragedy was to run away.

Fact: Flooding of the Yangtze River in China in 1931 caused more than 3 million deaths from flooding and starvation.

But to truly take something of value from this tragedy, we need to understand that it is not unique. It is not a result of global warming or bad politics or exploiting the third world. It is what happens. Some accounts have described this as being of "biblical proportions." Well, that may just be true. But it is also of recent historical proportions.

This is what life is like. It is what life has been like for the vast majority of mankind for the vast majority of history. Lives lived by tenuously eking out an existence form the land, never knowing when an uncertain and violent nature would wipe you away through flood, fire, famine or disease.

It has always been thus.

Fact: It is estimated that 1,000,000 died as a result of earthquakes in Egypt and Syria in 1201.

Dennis Prager is fond of saying that wisdom begins with the fear of God. This is a profound insight. A corollary is that a proper appreciation of the world we live in demands that we maintain a profound respect for the power of nature.

There is not much we can do to stop earthquakes and tsunamis. We can simply watch and pray and help out as we are able, realizing that this is the human tragedy - Act 3,456,857 - being played out. But some things we can change. Sometimes, to our credit, we choose to.

Fact: More people were murdered by Saddam Hussein's regime than were killed by the recent tsunamis.

And sometimes, inexplicably, we choose not to.

Fact: An estimated 50,000 people have been killed thus far in the Darfur region of the Sudan. It has been estimated that this figure will increase to as much as 300,000.

Maybe if there were more cameras there.